How to Improve my Performance Without Buying another PC

[Barry]

I have had my PC now for about 1 year and generally it has been great for my needs. Now though I feel as though it is aging and I am resorting to playing Medieval II on low low low settings and still hitting lag although I think that this was the case when I bought the PC. RTW plays fine up to a very high point.

I have brought together some of my major PC Specs from dxdiag, if anybody needs more please post and I will try to find out for you.





From DXDIAG
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
System
OS: Windows vista home premium (6.0, build 6000)
System Manufaturer/ Model : Acer Aspire SA90
BIOS: Phoenix Award BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Genuine Intel(R) CPU 2160 @ 1.80GHz (2 CPUs) ~1.8GHz (It says on a little sticker on my tower that it is DUALCORE)

Memory: 1022mb RAM
Page File: 1251MB used 1043 availiable
Directx: 10

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Display
Name: ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies
Chip Type: ATI Radeon Graphics Processor (0x94C3)
Approx total Memory: 382 MB
Current Display Mode: 1440 x 900 (32bit) (75Hz)
Monitor: Generic Php Monitor




I really would like to upgrade my PC without actually buying a brand new one but I am really lost where to start, more than likely I would hire a professional to fix new parts as I dopn't feel confident taking my computer to bits and putting it back together.

Main aims are to be able to play MTW II to a high standard and possibly even ETW.

[Lemur]

One gig of ram is sub-par, and can easily be remedied. Two gigs is considered minimum wage these days, and Vista Home Premium can (sort of ) address 4 gigs if it's patched and up-to-date.

That ATI 2400 will be able to handle Medieval II, but I don't know about Empire. Given that you can upgrade to a 4850 for $130 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131125), I would recommend swapping it out.

These is my thoughts.

[Barry]

Brilliant lemur, thanks. I have a budget of around £300/£400 if that helps?

[Lemur]

Pounds Sterling confuse me. They're worth more than a dollar, but you Brits spend them like dollars. If a pint is three bucks here, it's three pounds there. I never get used to that.

Anyway, I'm a Colonial, so I have no advice when it comes to where/how to buy in Glorious Britannia. But 4 gigs of sparkly-fresh RAM and a new videocard should spruce you up nicely.

[Barry]

Thanks a lot Lemur, ahh I see you are a moderator, just to let you know there is a duplicate of this thread in the Apothecary.

[Veho Nex]

Theres also some minor cleansing you can do in your task manager but since you are running Vista, I dont know whats safe and not safe to end. You might want to look it up. It wont be a significant improvement but its enough to maybe knock half a second off the load time.

[Barry]

Anything is a win Veho Nex, my thanks.

[Veho Nex]

I forgot to mention, you need to look up system important processes and goto processes in the Windows Task Manager. End the ones that aren't system important. I know for XP it would be
svchost.exe(there are several)
Explorer.exe
system
lsass.exe
winlogin.exe
csrss.exe
smss.exe
services.exe

[Barry]

Anyone know for sure which ones are not important with Vista?